Understanding and Teaching Pitches

Wow, lot's of good opinions, lot's of
misinformation.

Summary:
1. I prefer to teach How and When it is a good time to Teach a Pitcher to Develop Pitches.

2. To become a successul pitcher at all 90 ft levels of competition, I prefer the student
possess the following 'requirements'
2.1 Fastballs with command and movement
2.2 Change Ups for outs
2.3 Breaking Pitches with 'character'

3. Learn how to study and read a hitter's
strength and dangers resulting from, while
understanding the pluses associated with
knowledge of a hitter's weaknesses.

The DETAILS of 1. & 2. above

a) Add to Your Pitching Arsenal, the
tasks of learning to throw your
fastball to location.

Some typical 'spots' include:
#1- Low (on the knees) & Away (Hitter)
#2- Low & Middle
#3- Low & In
#4- Belt & In
#5- Up & In
#6- Up & Away

ex a1) For a RH, throwing a fastball
to the #1 spot would be on the
knees, and away from RH hitter,
preferably 'on the black' & if
called, a strike.

b) For you to to better understand what's
in your 'deck of cards', and as you begin to shuffle and deal (& duck), I suggest you obtain knowledge of how and when a baseball spins, and from this understanding begin to learn when & where the your grip on the ball will move when correctly thrown.

Does anybody remember Johnny Sain showing us
what this meant to him? Sain drilled a hole in a baseball and placing a stick through it. Hence a useful tool. (You may remind yourself of another 'Sain'ism by recalling an ol' writers 'proverb' "Spahn and Sain, & two days of Rain". )

ex b1) A four seam fastball low and away to a RH hitting is a pitch I want each pupil to have in his 'arsenal'. (I may also NOT WANT to see this FB 'leak' out over the plate.)

ex b2) A four seam fastball, up and in to a RH hitting is also a pitch I want each pupil to understand and learn how and when to throw.

c) With any young arms understanding
of ball movement, I like to then demonstrate how the student can create ball movement through grip and release point, rather than seeing movement created by modifying technique, mechanics, their natural arm angle.

I have and may never recommend to any student how to twist his body/arm/wrist to gain ball movement. Thus, I prefer not to 'drop down' a potential live and loose arm toward a sidewinder or submariner.

I also prefer to teach most grips and release points off of the fastball, by primarily 'staying behind the baseball' at the release point, and not 'exposing' (or leading) the arm
action with the elbow.

d) For Fastball Pitch Grips I prefer the following teaching order:

4 Seam Fastball
2 Seam Fastball - With
2 Seam Fastball - Across

For these basic pitch requirements, I prefer
the student to understand how and why
both the social (middle) finger and
thumb works together (rather than
the 2nd power finger (e.g. index) and
the thumb). With this 'finger' knowledge,
variations of grips when learning breaking
pitches (e.g. cut fastball) and resultant
ball movement will be better appreciated.

e) There are many 'varieties' of Change-Ups Grips. Some are garden varieties. Others are mastered thru the trade. To start, one good change up will do just nicely. I prefer to teach change ups long before the teaching of breaking pitch grips.

OK Change (or circle)
Three Finger (w/o the palm)
Palm
Paze
Forcsh
Split Finger

I prefer to teach the basic OK (circle) change first. I also recommend the pupil learn how to throw and and release the change just like the fastball arm action and release point. I prefer to 'deaden' the OK change from the removal of the 'power fingers' pressure on the ball.
My preference is to throw the change for strikes, and the hitter swing at it.

There are many variations of change up grips. Overall the change is NOT easy to learn how and when to throw for strikes. The grip variation sometimes are due to a pupil's hands (or fingers) not being large (or long) enough, thus the 3 Finger & Palm grips are offered as an alternative. The Paze and Fosch grips are variations of finger pressure points, thumb placement and 'other' idiosynchrozies of the grip, and grip alone.

I prefer NOT to teach the young pitcher the split finger fastball. Period. There has been observed precautions to be better understood when small hands and short fingers are widely separated at release point which creat unneccessary stresses upon the elbow. For those with long fingers
and a 179 degree range of wrist freedom the split / fork is 'filtering' into the youth leagues as a flow down from successful & recognized college and pro programs of the 90's.

f. Breaking Balls
I teach a variety of breaking pitches. A good age to start learning is 15 yr olds.

Curve Balls
A conventional curve grip is 'hooking' a 'horseshoe' seam using the outside part of the middle finger and resting the thumb directly underneath (w/ or w/o the opposite seam). The curve ball release point is on top of and behind the baseball and desiring 12-6 rotation created over the resting index finger (vs around it).
At release the thumb will typically
point up.

Raised Finger Curve Ball.
A variation of the conventional curve ball grip by creating more pressure on the middle finger by 'pushing' the ball with the index finger. Supports more downward 12 - 6 or (1-7) spin.

Because curve balls when thrown are not called strikes or because of the many the variations of umpires curve ball strike zone, another type of breaking ball is sometimes offered, the Slider.

There are variations off grips off the Slider grip and are known as
Cut Fastball - 2 Seam FB Across Seams
& Off centering Power Fingers
whereas movement is created
with 'one' seam.

Slurve - Combo Slider & Curve Grip

The Slider is easy to throw, easy to learn, and because of the lack curve ball 'character' (e.g. 'depth' & 12-1 curveball spin may be thrown and called for strikes more often. The slider grip is a variation of the fastball. The spin is similar to a 'bullet', where as the middle power finger on 'side' of ball creates 'spiral' spin. I prefer NOT to teach the Slider to young lively arms, that being 18U. There are dangers to throwing the slider due to
'exposure' of the elbow or twisting
at release point.

g) How fast?
If we can agree that a major league FB is 84-85 mph (Decateur), and a curve ball is 12-14 mph off FB, then a good slider speed is 4-8 mph off FB. And as most big league coaches will tell the young (& old) pitchers of today, the hitters will tell you how you 'hard' to throw the change.

h) Good luck. Keep me informed.